Jaldi, Jaldi - Sooner Rather than Later

I had an errand at the Madras customs office and it didn´t take me too long to realize that “iga” the Kannada word for now, or the Hindi expression “jaldi, jaldi” meaning quickly or sooner rather than later, weren’t applicable. Peace Corps volunteers were optimists, chosen not only because they were competent and flexible but were, as the advertisement said,”people who saw a glass of water half full and not half empty”. However, even after two and a half years of navigating the Indian bureaucracy, I still wasn’t prepared for this long wait, and as the day slipped away so did my optimism.

Later was a crooked trail paved with promises.

My thesaurus had thirty-eight synonyms for bribe. My family called it greasing palms. When I was a paperboy and a caddy, it was a tip. In Kolar, we called it “bakshis” but I preferred to call it a simple gift, a milder word that didn't imply that I had acquiesced to a system that by example, Peace Corps Volunteers were told they could change.

The rusted hinges on the shutters that covered the unglazed windows of the customs office groaned in protest when an orderly pushed them open, and instead of cooling the room, let in a shock of warm air. My shirt was sticking to my back and my forehead was damp, and even if the breeze from a ceiling fan gave some relief, I avoided sitting under it because the blade wobbled precariously and looked as though it might come spinning down at any moment.  

My Peace Corps extension was nearing its completion and after leaving India, I had planned a motorcycle trip with some other volunteers through Europe and Northern Africa then cross the Sahara and into Central Africa, and I had my leathers, boots, and helmets sent to me from the States.

The package took three months but I finally received a notification that it had arrived by sea freight and could be picked up at the customs house at the port in Madras, and even if it was delayed, it was good timing.

I had driven the hundred and fifty miles from Kolar to buy spare parts for the compressors and rock drills that we used in our well blasting project at Atlas Copco not far from the port, and could stop and pick up my gear the next day before driving home.

The chief customs officer sat behind his desk in a well-pressed kaki shirt and trousers. He had a thick thatch of hair slicked with coconut oil and was newly shaven except for a painstakingly trimmed pencil mustache that gave him the look of the film stars that were seen on posters outside the cinemas in every village and town. He was dapper except for one blemish.

He had the badge on his shirt that many civil servants seemed to have, a blue stain on the bottom edge of his breast pocket that came from a badly made fountain pen. He greeted me perfunctorily when I presented myself. I showed him my invoice, and he replied that they had very much to do today, but please sit down and wait.

The hours passed. I had already spent the best part of the morning sweating in that spartanly furnished office, sitting among stacks of yellowed, dog-eared documents fastened with string and piled on shelves that buckled under their weight. These mountains of paper seemed to be similar in every government office I visited, and to my continual amazement, when a clerk needed a specific file he picked the correct one with the skill of a magician who shuffled a deck of cards, took a random request from the crowd, and without hesitating, pulled the stipulated one from the deck. 

Peace Corps volunteers were optimists, chosen not only because they were competent and flexible but they were as the advertisement said,” people who saw the glass “half full and not half empty” but even after two and a half years of navigating the Indian bureaucracy, I wasn’t prepared for this long wait, and as the day slipped away so did my optimism.

It was difficult to predict how long an errand would take, so I was at the office early, hoping that I’d get my package without any delay and be on my way. I had planned on getting back to Kolar before night fall, a slow trip on a road that was at times punishing even for the sturdy Jeep I drove, and at night sharing the narrow road with overloaded, speeding lorries driven by dare-devils honking their horns warning you to move over, wasn’t anything to recommend for the faint of heart .

No one seemed in a rush to help me. Frustrated, I saw others transact their business and leave. Early morning had turned into noon when the customs officer looked up from his desk, pushed the papers he was reading to one side and said with polished politeness and an unmistakable air of authority:

“Mr. Francis it is now lunch. Please come back this afternoon and we’ll see if we can help you.”

But when I returned in the afternoon, I was afraid that he might say,” Mr. Francis my clerks are having difficulty finding your parcel, please come back tomorrow”. 

I found an open air stall looking out over the harbor and the sea beyond it and ate a plate of rice with spicy mutton sauce scooped out of a tin bucket. I sat on a backless bench at a long plank table among day laborers and stevedores and then went to explore the docks.

I was reminded of the fact that all work progressed slowly in India when I saw a ship that was unloading grain, not with forklifts and cranes, but with manual labor. A troop of sinewy, barefoot men heaved the bagged cargo up on their backs and carried the sacks one at a time down a swaying gangplank to waiting lorries.

On my way back to the customs office I came upon a shipment of fertilizer in woven nylon sacks marked with the USAID stamp, apparently abandoned and exposed to the downpours of the coastal monsoon and then baked cement hard by the tropical sun. Maybe they were intentionally forgotten because the proper bribe might not have been paid, or maybe no one at the U.S. foreign aid bureau had the experience or foresight to consider the need for transport to the farms that it was destined for.

USAID had fulfilled its objective to get the fertilizer to Madras, unaware that shipping it 8,000 miles across two oceans was the easy part. We learned from the experience with our work in Kolar that the key to effective aid, once it came to its primary destination was distribution, and if the aid consisted of machines, adequate spare parts and maintenance. 

When I returned after lunch things seemed about the same. I took my seat again and saw that the man who decided the fate of my motorcycle gear was pressing his pen against a blotter to soak up the drops of cobalt blue ink that were leaking from it. While he rummaged for another one, I got up and handed him mine, a Parker T-Ball Jotter in stainless steel. It was a gift from a friend before I left for training in California along with an admonishment to write lots of letters. For me the pen had no sentimental value but for him, living in a country with highly controlled and restricted imports, a foreign made pen was a status symbol and a luxury. When he admired it, I finally got the hint.

“You can keep it if you like.”

A few minutes later, he signaled to a clerk and coincidence or not, it didn’t take more than a few minutes for my package to appear. 

Background: Bangladesh secession from Pakistan 1971-72

Hindsight always seems to make things clearer. Thinking back there might have been some other ingredients mixed into this customs officer’s recalcitrance, and I realized for the first time that being an American citizen wasn’t always advantageous.

A few months earlier there were widespread anti American demonstrations over U.S support for Pakistan, India’s archenemy, in the war of separation between West and East Pakistan which later became Bangladesh. There were stone throwing and chanting mobs around the American consulates in Delhi, Calcutta and Madras, and warnings from the U.S. government to the Indian government that resulted in the cancellation of U.S. aid to India.

Added to that, the week before my visit to Madras I was denied a visa renewal at the Home Affairs Ministry in Bangalore because of the diplomatic chasm that eventually led to the Peace Corp having to leave India. 

There were also some other circumstances that complicated things. India attracted many young European and American travelers because it was exotic, inexpensive and “gahnga “ (dope) was easily accessible. At the time, there was a popular movie "Hare Krishna, Hare Ram" that depicted longhaired hippies corrupting Indian youth and culture with their decadent ways, a classical Bollywood struggle between good and evil. The theme song from the movie that reinforced those feelings blasted out from speakers in every shop and restaurant. The chorus was, “Dum Maro Dum” “take another hit," or take another toke, as the expression for smoking hashish or marijuana was at the time, and was used to heckle tourists.